Dante on the Move

Tag: fiction

  • Living Well and ‘Leidenschaft’: From Pieve a Pitiana to Montemignaio

    The way up was steep, but inspiring company and a delicious supper awaited.

    I awoke at 2am to refuel the log burner in the community arts room where we were lodging and there followed a difficult but warm night of sleep. My day started at 7am when I rose to write and check work emails. It felt like breathing a new kind of air to have the time to write as the birds chirruped outside the window. 

    At 9am we were packed and having a breakfast of cereal and yoghurt with Stefano and his youngest son. My placemat read, ‘today is a good day to…love nature’. It felt prescient. 

    Alina and I said our goodbyes to our hosts and headed uphill for what was supposed to be a much easier day of the cammino. 

    The sight of the church slowly disappeared from view as we climbed up the road which hugged sinuous vineyards. After yesterday’s experience and reflection on Dante’s wood of suicides, I found myself noticing each tree and wondering what kind of soul would be trapped within it. This one, here, with its gnarled roots and stubby fingers; and there, an oak with its sturdy frame. 

    Although the path uphill was quite straightforward, we missed a turning and ended up in the small, deserted town of Saltino (the official and much shorter route threads an arch to the side of it.).

    The village appeared post-apocalyptic except for a bar where a lady with bleach blonde hair served us drinks – a cappuccino for Alina and an espresso macchiato for me. Alina introduced me to the song, Espresso Macchiato which is this year’s Estonian Eurovision song context entry.

    ‘Life is like spaghetti, it’s hard until you make it,’ sings Tommy Cash. 

    Eurovision has always been a big part of my life. I love the campness and the way that the heavy burden of nation states and regional strategizing is rendered playful, all accompanied in England by the teasing commentary of TV personalities Graham Norton and the late Terry Wogan. My sister-in-law, Jenny, is Swedish, and, in Sweden, Eurovision means business!

    In recent months, after making a new year’s resolution to spend more time with my niece and nephew in light of the realization that I likely won’t have kids of my own, I’ve been driving the two hours in my blue Mini every month to visit them. This has included joining them in watching the Swedish nationals where viewers vote for this year’s entry. It’s a hyper produced show and luckily you don’t need to speak Swedish to enjoy it. I felt a stab of pride as my 12-year-old niece Louisa fluently translated the commentary for me. Oh, to be raised bilingual.

    The winner of this year’s Swedish nationals who will travel to Basel, Switzerland for the competition in May is the Finnish band, KAJ, whose song, Bara Bada Bastu is about the joys of the sauna. It’s a catchy, extravagant number which will, for sure, give Estonia a run for its money. 

    Now here comes a fun fact I bet you didn’t know. Eurovision song contest entries don’t have to be from the country they represent. In 1988, Canadian artist Celine Dion represented Switzerland and won with the banger, ‘Ne partez pas sans moi’. Check out the video – she sports a tutu and a military jacket, quite the contrast to her sleek performance at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games (yes, I cried at it too). 

    I had the opportunity to travel to Finland myself in November last year during a research project for Save The Children on violence against children at EU borders. Between interviewing refugee children in reception centres, I had the pleasure of indulging in my own sauna experience. After singeing my skin red, I dived from Helsinki’s dock into the ice-cold ocean. Well, I say dive. In reality, I awkwardly and tentatively made my way down the metal steps until my body was under. Then my neck. Then my head. 

    Whoosh. The feeling was intoxicating, something between an orgasm and being burnt at the stake. I can see why the Fins are such a prosperous nation. 

    Saunas are such a big part of Finnish life that even one of the reception centres I visited had a sauna where a 17-year-old Colombian girl who was waiting on the result of her family’s asylum application told me she liked to spend time with her friends. I could imagine the Daily Mail headlines – ‘now SAUNAS for refugees!’ It made sense to me. It was freezing cold and in Finland, sauna equals life.

    On our departure from the town up to Vallombrosa we passed a sign warning cars to slow down for migrating frogs. 

    The expansive abbey loomed over the surrounding landscape which included an empty water feature which was also signaled, ‘no fishing’. Italians in these parts seem to really like their public signs. 

    ‘Sti Italiani!’ repeated Alina with her Roman lilt.

    From there it was a steep climb up what seemed like one thousand stone steps which looked over one of several waterfalls we would cross today. Each corner of the cliff was marked by a little shrine. 

    At the start of Dante’s journey, he meets three beasts in the woods: a leopard, a lion and a female wolf that represent his fears. Readers have argued for centuries about what they signified for him – pride, lust, greed? 

    As we climbed, we distracted ourselves by discussing what our three beasts would be. Mine were fear of dying without realizing one’s talents and potential, perfectionism, and the terror that assails me from time to time that I might not be the good person people think I am. Alina is a Jungian. She reminded me, in a chastising tone, that ‘we all have shadow selves. Me, I can’t get enough of you.’

    We are recording parts of our conversation as we walk for a future podcast since, to add to her already impressive portfolio of creative talents, Alina is currently studying sound design. As I adjusted my bra strap to ease the rub of my backpack, the portable microphone Alina had brought with her nearly went careering over the steep edge. Luckily it just fell a short way into the leaves where is disturbed a dozing lizard. 

    Alina and I have different body temperatures. I was sweating into my t-shirt, a gift from her which read Dante On the Move after our anthology of the same name, while she was wearing two jackets with a yellow jumper the colour of primroses tied around her neck like a scarf. 

    ‘This was meant to be the easy day!’ exclaimed Alina.

    We were rewarded with sweeping views across the surrounding hills. Then came the steep descent. It felt like we were walking down into Dante’s Inferno, each circle lined with ridges from which I could imagine Dante and Virgil looking down at the sinners below. 

    The sound of a stream accompanied our pilgrimage. 

    Animals have been a big part of our trip: we stop to pet every cat and salute every barking dog. But upon entering the town of Montemignaio we were greeted by two friendly sheep.

    ‘Salve!’ cried the owner who was walking them along a small lawn which was dotted with daisies. 

    ‘Buona sera’ we replied.

    ‘Would you like to see where they live?’ asked the friendly lady. We did.

    There followed an extraordinary evening.

    First, Anna showed us the beautiful paddock in which the sheep resided at night to protect them from local wolves. It was built to specification, she proudly declared, by a shamanic Venetian man who spent three years alone in the virgin forest of Bolivia, where he acquired much of his knowledge and wisdom. Inside the straw was fresh and dry and the circular structure had a domed ceiling crafted with all the care of a Florentine cathedral. Alina and I joked that we could have happily spent the night there instead of continuing to our air b and b. 

    Then came the chickens, equally spoiled in a bountiful enclosure on the hillside, made out of all organic materials.

    Anna had a way with the animals. She hugged them to her chest with a filial warmth. 

    As we were petting the sheep, a handsome stranger wearing an embroidered scarf and long leather boots made his way through the front gate to join us.

    ‘Ciao, Anna!’

    ‘Ciao, Matthias!’

    They embraced.

    Matthias, it turned out, was a fellow German. A writer who had moved to Montemignaio some eight months ago where he now runs a hostel for pilgrims, Frate e Sole. 

    ‘So, you’ve met the wonderful Anna!’ he exclaimed. 

    They clearly had a bond. She traded with him ‘happy chicken’ eggs, fresh vegetables from her garden and her homemade walnut liquor. 

    When asked about what we would be eating tonight, we replied that we hoped to pick something up at the village shop. Anna and Matthias exchanged raised eyebrows. 

    ‘But it’s Wednesday,’ came their response. As if, of course, logically, on Wednesday the shop would be closed.

    ‘Sti Italiani!’ repeated Alina playfully.

    We were contemplating the prospect of dining on unsalted bread and cereal bars when Matthias invited us to spend the evening together. 

    ‘It will be a simple fare, but healthy,’ he counselled. We were in. 

    Matthias bid us farewell for now and Anna invited us in. 

    Next to a beautifully landscaped vegetable garden sat Anna’s home, an old stone building which she’d had renovated. When Covid hit in the year 2020, she had relocated from her native Germany.

    It was simple but spectacular. Every room was full of ornate bespoke wooden furniture that had been made for her great grandfather – a wardrobe, desk, sideboard – all had been shipped over at great expense from Germany. Anna was in no two minds. This was now her home. And she was ‘living well’ here.

    Over the next hour, Anna shared insights from 82 years of life experience as we listened eagerly to her perfect English. Though she was born in the war in 1942, she looked not a day over 60. She radiated peace around her. The secret to being happy, she advised us, is to be grateful and to live in the moment. Her home had a traditional Etruscan metal handrail and organic earthen tiles the colour of doves. 

    In one room there greeted us the sight of marinating eggs and vegetables, in another vegetable seeds sprouted in tiny pots and here, in the bathroom, were a range of tinctures and ointments that she had made by hand. She showed us her traditional copper Florentine bed and her office which consisted of a shelf with an old Nokia mobile phone, an address book and a paper and pen. 

    ‘This is why I look young!’ she chortled, entreating us to follow her into the next room which contained a small library and more budding seeds. 

    It turned out Anna carried the seeds around with her throughout the day to make sure they were always at the optimum temperature,

    ‘This is my little kindergarten’ she explained with glee. ‘Right now, some are sleeping but tomorrow, who knows!’

    Anna shared with us some of her prized possessions. A steel candlestick holder from the war, a signed Zingarelli Italian dictionary and a book she had made herself with thick marbled Tuscan paper containing photographs from her collection – she was an artist too, it seemed. Alongside each photo was a short description which mindfully described the scene. One showed a rag rug made out of old textiles.

    The accompanying text which was tucked into a pocket, sewn into the page of the book, read:

    ‘After

    All those clothes

    Sewn, worn and torn,

    After being woven into this mat,

    After the passage over it

    Of so many feet, big and small…

    Now, finally:

    Loosen the grip,

    Gracefully dissolving

    Into a harmony of fading colours’

    Anna was dressed like a farmer in a pink jumper and dungarees and she had circled her eyes with a turquoise eye liner. It looked magnificent. It reminded me of my late Italian teacher, Andi Oakley, who would line her eyes in a glittering violet hue.

    As we parted ways, Anna gave us a bottle of her homemade walnut liquor and a dozen eggs and hugged us the way I haven’t been hugged in a long time. Her arms, strong with the labour of running her little farm, held me tightly while her calloused fingers caressed my back. 

    Of course, we were late to dinner, but we knocked on the way down and gave Matthias the heads up. 

    ‘We’ve been with Anna,’ we explained, and he immediately understood.

    After a quick turnaround, we arrived at his homely place where he’d lit a roaring fire. We found a table set with plates and crystals that glowed in the throw of his Himalayan salt lamp. The green man watched over us.

    While Anna’s walls had been bare, here art and tapestries occupied the space: Monet, Van Gogh, Kandinsky. I was quite impressed that, between us, Alina and I managed to identify nearly all of them. Next to the fire was a bible. Matthias had moved to the town after doing the St Francis’ Way, or the Via di Francesco, which runs from Florence to Rome and shares some of the same route of the Cammino di Dante, including passing through this magical town. 

    Matthias explained how he sought to integrate the teachings of Saint Francis into his own life: living simply, staying humble, being kind to those in need (and saving hiking strangers from starvation because the bloody shop was closed.) He made his money writing short stories for German magazines. 

    We ate a delicious but humble meal of homemade bread which he’d taken 24 hours to prepare using a local method he’d learnt from Anna with flour from the local mill. The salad contained fresh beetroot and the garlicy local leaf known as ‘erba orsina’, a name that refers to the fact that a bear (orso), awakening in springtime after his winter sleep, goes for this herb in order to get strong and potent again.

    We discussed our mutual love of Erich Maria Remarque (Alina) and Stefan Zweig (me) and Alina read one of the poems from her new collection called, Why Do We Choose To Suffer. We discussed the meaning of leidenschaft – as artists, there is passion in a certain kind of suffering, we agreed.

    This was something our feet knew all too well as we climbed back up the hill to the welcoming Agriturismo di Mela where we were greeted with milk for our morning coffee, supplies for an emergency dinner – which thankfully we didn’t need – and soft sheets. 

  • In the Distance: Florence to Pieve a Pitiana

    Renaissance paintings line the route, but be wary of getting lost in the wood of suicides.

    Though I remain determined it is what Dante would have wanted, starting my pilgrimage in Florence, Dante’s birthplace, rather than his site of exile and death, Ravenna, had the drawback of beginning with what is said to be the hardest day of the cammino: 30 kilometres with an ascent of 895 metres. Though I’ve been training back in the UK in the Peak District near my home, I was somewhat daunted as to how the day would unfold.

    I woke around 7am to the sound of birds singing and the chiming bells of Santa Spirito, the ‘church across the river’. I left Anna and her family sleeping soundly as I packed up my bag and tried discretely to exit the jewelry studio through the glass double doors that opened onto the quiet street. Succulents a hue of pink and green occupied window boxes along the cobbled passage into which the sun was sneakily smuggling its first rays of the morning. 

    In Santo Spirito square the market sellers were already setting up their stalls: leggings, knickers, pot plants, copper bracelets and beaded earrings the size of oranges. Two dogs – one caramel and fluffy, one white and slick – frolicked by the central fountain while their owners puffed on cigarettes and made casual conversation.

    I took an espresso macchiato and looked across at the church. Among other delights, it contains the Madonna with St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Martin of Tours by Filippino Lippi. The altarpiece is also known as Pala de’ Nerli from the name of the commissioners, Tanai de’ Nerli and his wife Nanna, who are shown in donor portraits at the sides – the Renaissance equivalent of a selfie. 

    The painting was commissioned by the church in 1494, so some 100 years after Dante walked the squares of Florence. Lippi’s style is sensual. Gone are the 2D Giotto era portraits of Jesus looking like an adult squeezed into a baby-sized body. Lippi was a contemporary of Botticelli whose fleshy Madonnas continue to mesmerize visitors to the Uffizi with their delicate features. 

    The Uffizi Gallery literally means ‘offices’. It is named after the seat where the city’s rulers used to conduct their affairs. Once business was conducted in the Bargello, now an art gallery home to dozens of Donatello sculptures where Dante would have served as a member of the political elite. 

    The Bargello is the ideal venue to trace the complex relationship between Dante and his home city. In the Sala dell’Udienza of the then Palazzo del Podestà (today the Salone di Donatello), on 10 March 1302, the poet-politician was condemned to exile. In the adjacent Cappella del Podestà, a few years later, Giotto and his school portrayed Dante’s face for the first time, including him in a fresco among the ranks of the elect in Paradise. It is said to be the first ever portrait of Dante.

    The façade of the Santo Spirito Church is striking in its simplicity. As I passed and continued towards the Ponte Vecchio, runners wove in and out of my path and trucks disembarked cargo to one of Florence’s hundreds of eateries. One box read, ‘Lobsters and fresh mussels.’ 

    An Asian couple were taking wedding photos on the famous bridge which connects the Uffizi Galleries to the Pitti Palace which the Medici once called their home. Her veil glittered in the morning sunlight as the photographer insisted they ‘kiss, kiss, kiss!’

    I took a second coffee when I reached the Piazza del Duomo which, unlike the rest of the still sleepy city was bustling with life. Tour groups followed umbrellas like leaf cutter ants and carriages pulled by horses escorted tourists through the narrow streets. In Venice, the streets are known colloquially as ‘rughette’ or ‘little wrinkles’. I smiled as I recalled this fact, spreading wrinkles across my own face.

    Then came the time for our meeting. 

    Alina arrived, her flaming red hair licking her collarbone and cascading over her shoulders.

    She was wearing a beautiful black coat over sweatpants and a running jacket designed by one of the fashion houses for whom she had previously laboured. She had succeeded in stashing a huge amount into her small backpack.

    ‘That’s what comes with moving around a lot,’ she said. ‘And the coat? Well, if you invite a refugee on a walk, they likely only have one coat, and this is it.’

    We hugged tightly, shedding the first of what would be several tears over the coming days, and reached out and touched the walls of the baptistry where Dante had been immersed in 1265 and to where he had hoped one day to return as a poet post-exile. In Paradiso canto 25 he writes,

    ‘If it should happen . . . If this sacred poem—

    this work so shared by heaven and by earth

    that it has made me lean through these long years—

    can ever overcome the cruelty 

    that bars me from the fair fold where I slept,

    a lamb opposed to wolves that war on it, 

    by then with other voice, with other fleece,

    I shall return as poet and put on,

    at my baptismal font, the laurel crown .’

    ‘Se mai continga che ’l poema sacro

    al quale ha posto mano e cielo e terra,

    sì che m’ha fatto per molti anni macro, 

    vinca la crudeltà che fuor mi serra

    del bello ovile ov’io dormi’ agnello,

    nimico ai lupi che li danno guerra; 

    con altra voce omai, con altro vello

    ritornerò poeta, e in sul fonte 

    del mio battesmo prenderò ’l cappello . ‘                        

    It is tradition to depict poets in Italy with laurel crowns, one now adopted by students who port the symbol on graduation day. When we completed our Reading Dante with Refugees course in Rome, I made sure that all of the students received from Stephan, the Director of the Trinity College Rome Campus that hosted us, a laurel crown. 

    Alina, a Ukrainian refugee fashion designer turned feminist activist, was one of the eleven refugee students who took my class. For her final project she imagined her own journey from Inferno to Paradiso through the lens of the Italian bureaucracy. In the short film she made for the course, Paradise of Exiles, she shows herself moving from the dark wood (she literally, set off at 2am to shoot in woods outside of Rome) followed by the Purgatory of refugee status determination and the eventual Paradise of finding peace in Rome’s art scene. She filmed the final scenes at an exclusive shoot at the Galleria Borghese where my friend Stefania Vannini is a curator. She looks resplendent with her red hair against the green walls. I’m there in the background cheering her on.

    Since the course finished two years ago, I have become somewhat of a mentor to Alina, even though she is only five years younger than me. I know the value of mentorship having experienced it first-hand myself so many times over: Julie, Andi, Janey, Joyce – you know who you are.

    We took our time winding through the bustling morning streets before passing to the river, beside which we hiked a good few kilometres before turning up a road that led us outside of the city. For the entire morning, the Florentine landscape peaked out behind us like a jester egging us on. Each time we turned around she was more distant. I thought of Dante and how close he would have come in his exile. While we know, as this trek honours, that he dwelled at several lodgings by the river Arno, did he get close enough to see the cityscape which then would have been teaming with medieval towers and devoid of today’s famous domed landscape curated by Brunelleschi and Giotto?

    Swallows sprung from under bridges and inside cemeteries, disturbing the air with the gentle flap of wings. Street corners were embellished with Madonna and child.

    Alina and I chatted fluently in our colloquial mix of Italian-English as we followed the path up, up, up and left the gilded city in our trail. At 11.30 on the dot we stopped at a bench overlooking the city for her to join a call with two interns working for her holistic creative agency, Sensi, who were running an event on refugee wellbeing. I took the time to check our route and enjoy the delicate scent of crocuses that filled the spring air. 

    Despite her small bag, Alina had packed in an impressive amount of food including ‘unsalted bread’ from her local Bangladeshi deli. I was relieved to find that I was able to stomach dates again after a traumatic incident in Syria where I spent a 12-hour bus journey to Jordan munching on a bag-full only to find, upon sunrise, that it was also filled with ants. Oh well, protein is protein.

    Alina shared her news and I caught her up with my life. We’d both spent depressive winters hiding beneath the sheets of our beds and were grateful, like the crocuses, to be coming back to life. I had nominated Alina to be part of the Nobel Women’s Initiative Sister to Sister mentorship programme in 2023 and now she’d been invited to participate in a peacekeeping mission to Ukraine. It’s a funny kind of pride I felt as both a teacher and a friend. 

    ‘It’s about time women got some coverage in the Ukrainian-Russian conflict in Britain,’ I commented. ‘Too true,’ she observed.

    Once we had taken in the last glimpse of the Duomo it was after lunch. We ate schiacchiata sandwiches, a Florentine delicacy which literally means ‘squashed together’.

    The day was hot.

    In the town of Bombone we stopped to refill our water bottles and I marveled at the fact that the town council had voted to put in a well that featured not just purified still, but fizzy water. I made the mistake of filling my camel drinking pouch with it, only for it later to explode inside my bag. Luckily though my bum got soaked, my laptop survived.

    We met a kind faced 80-year-old lady who Alina showed how to use the fountain,

    ‘In all these years, I’ve never known,’ she said. ‘Buon cammino!’

    A lot of Alina’s utterances start with the phrase ‘before the war’, just as mine do with ‘before my divorce’. Before long we were completing each other’s sentences. 

    ‘Before the war, I got my eyebrows done.’ 

    ‘Before the war, I worked for Alexander McQueen.’

    ‘Before my divorce, I worked for openDemocracy’

    ‘Before my divorce, I thought that by simply loving people I could change the world.’ 

    Perhaps something of the latter is still true.

    Mum dropped me a text asking how it was going, addressing me as ‘her Marco Polo’. 

    ‘Benissimo,’ I replied.

    I was so happy to see Alina. 

    Despite her slender Ashtanga yoga and capoeira molded frame and my own body, bloated with anti-depressants, she was less trained for the hike than I was. She pushed on honorably in her sneakers rarely complaining or even stopping to drink water. Layers were taken off and on as we moved in and out of the sun. 

    ‘I can’t get over the fact someone has gone to all this effort to mark this trail!’ I kept repeating, euphoric that someone out there might be more obsessed by Dante than me. Each sign post for the Dante trail had been marked with a red sticker on a lamppost or a wooden sign with the letters CD singed into it by hand by the trail’s father, Oliviero Resta, who I hope to meet in person in Ravenna.

    I would say it was hard to get lost if it were not for the half an hour detour we took tumbling down a dark forest following the GPS and ignoring the very clear ‘no trespassing’ sign. It turned out we were right, but the forest spooked us both. As we crossed the barbed wire and our feet became trapped in brambles, I thought of the documentary, Green Border, I recently watched about refugees seeking to cross the Belarussian-Polish frontier at the edge of Europe.

    ‘You can imagine Dante feeling a little shitty here, eh?’ we remarked. 

    Finally, arms shredded with brambles we were back on solid ground.

    We passed fields of tortured vines that provided a rich supply of local wine and stopped at a vineyard called Fattoria Pagnana to taste the local fare and buy a bottle for tonight’s hosts, a family of six who look after the local church. While much of today consisted of being barked at by aggressive guard dogs, at the winery the two brown dogs approached us tails wagging and tongues lolling out of their mouths, desperate for a touch. Alina like me is an animal lover. 

    ‘Don’t lick my face!’ She squealed.

    They licked her face.

    At 5pm, our host, Stefano offered to pick us up in the neighbouring village but we were insistent that we would carry on. We resisted the temptation to stay in Rignano sull’Arno for a Palestine solidarity music night and arrived at Pieve a Pitiana at around 8 in the evening with the sun setting behind us. 

    We had both been spooked by getting lost in the forest earlier in the day and now as the sun set, the sun kissed vines metamorphosed into Dante’s wood of suicides.

    In Canto 13 of Inferno, Dante encounters those who have taken their own lives, following on from Canto 12 where he depicts those who have been violent towards others or their possessions. The canto is heavy with negativity:

    ‘No green leaves in that forest, only black;  

    no branches straight and smooth, but knotted, gnarled;  

    no fruits were there, but briers bearing poison.’  


    ‘Non fronda verde, ma di color fosco;

    non rami schietti, ma nodosi e ’nvolti;

    non pomi v’eran, ma stecchi con tòsco.’

    Dante is remarkably kind to the souls, much to Virgil’s chastisement, asking after them and their stories. Virgil encourages him to snap a branch off one of the oaks from which blood drains and the soul within orates. This is how he meets Pier della Vigna, an advisor to Frederick II who killed himself when his reputation was ruined by false rumors. Frederick asks for Dante to heal his reputation on earth, because this is the only part of him that survives outside of Hell. Though encouraged by Virgil to interrogate the tree like an asylum seeker on trial, Dante is so stirred by pity that he says he cannot think of anything more to ask the soul.

    Dante describes the tortured woodland as infested with harpies who abuse the souls by ripping off their branches. In an act of symbolic retribution, it is said that when each of the blessed and damned will return with their body from the Last Judgment, those damned for suicide will not re-inhabit their bodies but instead hang them on their branches, both because they denied them in their final act of life and as a reminder of what they denied themselves. Salvador Dalí depicted this starkly in one of his many paintings of the Commedia.

    As I mentioned above, Alina and I had spoken over the course of the day frankly about our own very difficult winters. Previous experiences of depression and suicidal thoughts had also weaved their way into our casual conversation, as they had many times before. It felt concrete and somewhat scary to see this fictitious scene brought to life. 

    We arrived at the church of Pieve a Pitiana to a roaring fire and an equally warm welcome from our host Stefano, his wife Giorgia, Stefano’s mother and their three bubbly kids. Anna, the middle girl-child was excited to practice her English, asking us about our favourite sports, meanwhile the youngest boy was keen to discuss all things Pokémon, later gifting us each a precious Pokémon card (I got Chansey, super power level 80. Get in!)

    He had been off school sick and held his arm in a sling made from a shredded blanket. 

    ‘You look like a Roman wearing a toga!’ I commented, at which he giggled. His dimples pitted his face like someone had imprinted it with little olive pips. 

    We ate a simple meal of pasta al pomodoro with eggs from the three happy free-range hens that were the family pets and aubergine marinated by Stefano’s mother. Stefano and Giorgia talked to us about the 600-year-old house and the church that had even longer foundations. They had met in Peru. Their oldest son Michael was a bit timider but cited to us the first verse of the Divine Comedy after remarking, 

    ‘Wow, you guys are like really, really into Dante!’

    I think they were glad to have someone to talk to.

    After dinner there followed a private tour of the church where we were able to marvel at the paintings of Ghirlandaio, an early Renaissance painter of the Florentine school noted for his detailed narrative frescoes. One had been stolen, Stefano explained, and a replacement had been installed. He was careful to put on the alarm before we left. Alina said a short prayer. 

    The house sits beside an NGO that works with local migrant children and the two stories Alina and I shared were strewn with half-finished craft projects and colourful drawings on the walls. Since we both work with refugee children, it was a sight familiar to us both. They marked a stark and stunning contrast with the 14th century stonework which peaked out at points from beneath the pastel plaster. 

    With full tummies, Alina and I headed to our bunks in the arts room, sleeping beside loo roll easter bunnies and papier mâché masks. A warm shower was most welcome. My inner heels had developed thick blisters while Alina’s little toes looked like they had come down with plague sores.

    An open fire kept us warm and dried our soap rinsed socks and knickers as we snuggled into our blankets and rested our weary limbs. 

    Apparently, I screamed out at one point in the night but this I don’t recall.

    Recommended watching (turn on subtitles): Paradise of exiles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o-lUZq_71E

    Recommended watching: Green Border: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27722543/

    Recommended reading: openDemocracy 50.50: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/author/jennifer-allsopp/